Honestly, this is never going to work. I guarantee that within 3 weeks, Blizzard will be forced to gut LFR. The only people clearing this will be regular raiders. Blizzard is seriously overestimating PUGs ability to communicate and coordinate. Honestly, this feels a lot like going from Wotlk heroics to cata heroics. It isn´t so much that these LFR´s are difficult, it is that they are significantly more difficult than DS was.

Unless you get lucky and get put with a 10man raid that queues with 2tanks and 3 healers and 5 dps... i don´t see very many solo players having much fun in these.

The really need to gut any mechanism where a single dpser can wipe the raid. Having a dot and not moving away from the raid, and wiping it? haha..

Azrile - From beta testing there were a lot of people wanting to invest time in learning, unfortunately for every person who wants to learn, there are 5 or more asleep and don't give a damn. I hope Blizzard stick to it and just let people try get better. LFR on beta is not incredibly tough at all, some encounters were very over-tuned at times, but were nerfed hard to much more acceptable levels for LFR. The last version I witnessed I think was a very good position, I just hope they did not do anything else in the meantime (which they did to DS btw).

Rangifer: You can get the legendary sigils in the raid. There are NO legendary weapons. The legendary is a gem which can slot into special weapons which can drop from Grand Empress and select bosses in Terrace.

"Teamwork and communication is needed. On some encounters more so than others."
Not looking forward to this.. at least in the first few weeks.

My experience of Cataclysm launch heroics tells me it's the latter weeks you need to worry about, difficulty and inexperience quickly weeds out the unprepared. Also a lot of people won't be 90 and geared by now, and a disproportionate number of those will be committed raiders.

Honestly, this is never going to work. I guarantee that within 3 weeks, Blizzard will be forced to gut LFR. The only people clearing this will be regular raiders. Blizzard is seriously overestimating PUGs ability to communicate and coordinate. Honestly, this feels a lot like going from Wotlk heroics to cata heroics. It isn´t so much that these LFR´s are difficult, it is that they are significantly more difficult than DS was.

Unless you get lucky and get put with a 10man raid that queues with 2tanks and 3 healers and 5 dps... i don´t see very many solo players having much fun in these.

The really need to gut any mechanism where a single dpser can wipe the raid. Having a dot and not moving away from the raid, and wiping it? haha..

LFR aint for noobs, its for raiders who cant commit to a guild anymore beacuase of RL. And with LFR they can que for it anytime they want and get a good raiding experience. You know raiding = wiping = learning = killing the boss, not going there facerolling everything and geting free epics. DS LFR was crap, ive seen sometimes 5-10 people afk in it.

If it really is going to be like you described on Live, I really don't see it lasting very long.. Most people who queue for LFR don't do it for a challenge, but for loot, and I can see it turning into a giant QQ-fest from the get go.

Originally Posted by Pilek01

LFR aint for noobs, its for raiders who cant commit to a guild anymore beacuase of RL. And with LFR they can que for it anytime they want and get a good raiding experience. You know raiding = wiping = learning = killing the boss, not going there facerolling everything and geting free epics. DS LFR was crap, ive seen sometimes 5-10 people afk in it.

While it's a nice thought, you and I both know that this is rarely (if ever) the case.

LFR aint for noobs, its for raiders who cant commit to a guild anymore beacuase of RL. And with LFR they can que for it anytime they want and get a good raiding experience. You know raiding = wiping = learning = killing the boss, not going there facerolling everything and geting free epics. DS LFR was crap, ive seen sometimes 5-10 people afk in it.

It is not for you to determine what LFR is for. The fact is you WILL have a ton of noobs in it. I agree with you in principle, that it should be for people willing to learn-wipe-learn-beat.... but that is not the way it works now. The way it worked is tank-healers learned-wiped-learned... while after every wipe, 10 dps dropped group... which was fine in DS, because for the most part, the DPS could only really get themselves killed and once the tanks knew what they were doing, for the most part the dps just had to dps.

Again, it is why Cata heroics were so brutal to pug the first month.. because a tank and healer who knew the fight still couldn´t carry dps who ignored major mechanisms. If an LFR boss requires DPS to do more than dps, not stand in fire, and switch targets, it will be very difficult. An LFR that allows 1 dps to wipe the raid? I´d be willing to bet that one mechanism will be removed within 3 weeks (the dot that blows up the raid).

Everything you said could also have been said about Cata heroics... But the fact is the devs set the bar very low with DS LFR, and there is going to be a ton of screaming these next few weeks from those auto-shoot hunters.

Do you get paid to do this? That seems like a TONN of work man. I'm doing a project right now and just taking some time off. Jeez this is well thought out and structured and there's so much info. It must have taken you very long to do it. So long that I sure hope you got paid to. I've been working on my Business Requirments for about 4 hours now and I'm still don't have that amount of info in it.

Much respect man!

Originally Posted by Traknel

Yes it is. In fact, the next expansion is going to be called "Mists of Metzen" and is just going to be various mobs with his face stuck on them.

First, thank you very much for the guide. It is very thorough, and hopefully will provide a good avenue for players to learn the mechanics.

Anyway, in regards to the subject of LFR difficulty... I don't think the majority of players will be properly "equipped" to deal with these new mechanics, as they seem particularly punishing. Mists of Pandaria heroics are pretty darn easy, easier than WotLK heroics were at launch, I'd be inclined to say. If the only entry barrier to LFR is to have skirted through heroic dungeons a couple times over to gear oneself up in (mostly) heroic dungeon gear, with the rest padded out by solo-quest blue gear, I foresee many, many wipes in LFR's future. My experiences with LFR in the past doesn't lead me to believe that everyone will take it upon themselves to learn from wipes or search up mechanics previously, and will instead rage quit, blame others, start griefing, and any and all combinations of those three. The only potential upside to this is that players that dedicate themselves to learning the mechanics and sticking it out will be able to do the later raid stages, ensuring that the people one gets grouped with at those levels have some level of competency.

I'd almost be inclined to say that "punishing" mechanics are better relegated to five mans, as individual mistakes can be pointed out more easily and you can offer more specific advice as to how to prevent said mistakes from happening in the future. But if you're in LFR, focusing on doing your own thing, avoiding AOEs, and whatnot, and suddenly 11 people die, well... it's both a wipe and can be hard to address exactly what went wrong and who needs to not repeat that mistake again... complicated by the fact that they might not want to listen or could potentially not even speak the same language.

I suppose we shall see.

Last edited by Kaleredar; 2012-10-08 at 06:51 AM.

“Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.” ~ Emily3, World of Tomorrow

Ive been joking in guild chat for the last week how much every one is dreading the up and coming LFR. I mean, we could still see in the last weeks of DS some ridiculously bad players that had 0 clue what to do in the fights, thus messing up the raid. Im just dreading the fact that come wednesday everyone will que for LFR thinking "well im sure someone knows what to do" and cause major wipeage. I truly hope that at least the tanks have the sense to read & learn about the fights cause if they dont, we are all screwed.

I dont think its fair that so much lie on the shoulders of the tanks, but someone has to carry the weight and in this case it is the tanks..

Also, i think it sucks that Blizz brought down the ilevel requirement to 460.. For raiding with total strangers it should be mandatory that you are up to par with the challenges and if that means at least grinding your ilevel to 463 then so be it. I hope that Shanger and Salryi´s lootband dont lul people to a false sense of ease of "raid bosses" cause these fights are the kind of fights that you can join and have 0 clue what to do... oh, shiz spawned under my feet, i guess ill move.. oh, im mc´d, well not a lot i can do but wait till it breaks. Oh, adds, erm.. i guess ill hit them too.

There is a weekly quest received at your faction's Shrine in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms (level 90). This quest will require you to collect 90 Lesser Charms of Good Fortune which can be obtained by doing daily quests throughout Pandaria. When you complete the quest you receive 3 Elder Charm of Good Fortune.

Elder Charm of Good Fortune

5(b) The Elder Charm of Good Fortune:

The Elder Charm allows a player to have an extra chance at obtaining an item from a boss. This chance does not impact anyone else's chance of loot, it is a personal roll the game decides for you. You will always win something, gold, flasks or even an item from the boss's loot table, the extra item is a very low chance, but a chance regardless. This chance can occur only in raids, be that LFR, normal or heroic.

If you raid anything other than LFR, don't use Elder Charms on LFR bosses, use them in heroics or normal modes. If you're only going to play casual, use Elder Charms: 1 on Sha, 1 on Galeon, and 1 on a LFR boss.

As a healer, this is going to be ... interesting. I wonder if the in-game voice coms will see some use now :P

Who am I kidding. LFR raiders are about as flexible and reasonable as an 8 year old dipshit who wants crisps in wal-mart. You know the one I'm talking about. I'll be in there on Wednesday though. Healing the crybabies just as much as the reasonable folk

If you wanted skill-based PvP, why didn't you start playing DotA?
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.